Hafiao—Rival Marquesan Queens—Behind the Veil—Vaca Mountain—I meet R.L.S.—Thakambau the Last of the Fijian Kings—Apia

After a monotonous voyage of adverse winds and a typhoon that brought seas over and washed me out of my bunk, smashed our deck in and carried away all the cordage and boats, we arrived at “Hivaoa.” The natives swam out to us in shoals; on they came as the anchor dropped, lines and lines of bobbing frizzly heads with swimming eyes, gliding along to the paddling hands level with the water, while racing along in front of them came canoes heavily laden with cargoes of natives evidently more successful in life than the poverty-stricken swimmers who only possessed their own skins. We threw ropes over the ship’s side and up they came, clambering, and danced over the decks. Stalwart, fine fellows they were, with large lustrous eyes, and as soon as they leapt to the deck and shook themselves as dogs do after a swim, they started rushing about singing and jabbering for a job to take us ashore in their canoes, and the skipper stood by his cabin aft with a big cigar in his mouth, shouting, “Keep yer eye on the God-damned devils,” for he had turned his head for one moment and with native alertness one of them had dived into his cabin and collared his best white duck suit. Down came a large wooden plank over the poor devil’s head as he dropped the suit on deck and with a bound went over the side into the sea.

It was after sunset before I went ashore, and with several of the crew we roamed about visiting the natives in their thatched homes and saw the native children romping around as they sneaked out of their beds to peep at us and the swarthy mothers and fathers, squatting on the floor, cross-legged, invited us to drink and eat. All about us as we walked under the palms from one home to another we saw the shadows moving as the men and women roamed about, passing from clump to clump of palm-trees which shaded the Marquesan homesteads. It was just like some fairyland, as over the clear skies shone the Southern stars, and often came the singing of the natives and the beating of their wooden drums from where some of the families were giving parties over a birthday or the anniversary of a wedding, enjoying themselves in the same spirit as they do in the suburban homes of English towns.

I saw a lot of old chiefs and wrinkled dethroned kings and queens during my stay there. The girls were nearly all dressed in leafy girdles and the youths likewise. I had heard a lot about Hivaoa from Hornecastle and I remembered that he had several wives there and large grown-up families, but I did not meet any of them to my knowledge. I only stayed there two or three days and then joined the boat again and we left for Nuka Hiva. The natives there I found were very similar to those of Hivaoa, but the Island itself struck me as very prosperous, being a good deal under cultivation. Whilst there I went inland alone and made friends with a Marquesan chief named Hafiao. He could speak English fairly well, also a little French. I remember him well, because he was such an intellectual-looking old fellow and looked very much like Gladstone, but he was more powerfully built and of course brown skinned. He told me he was over a hundred years old, and he looked it too. He had a nice house and three pretty native women looked after him. I am not so sure that they were not his wives. He told me that nearly all the whites that called at Nuka Hiva came especially inland to see him, and he was as proud as anything when I told him that Robert Louis Stevenson was greatly impressed by him and his kingly bearing. Of course I made that all up, but while he puckered his wrinkled old face up and tried to tell me of the “great white people” that had called upon him, he mentioned the name of “Stessen” and from what he said I should imagine that he meant “Stevenson,” for he described him to me at my request, and most impressively told me that he was “good white mans who saw that he the great Hafiao was no ordinary man, but a brave and mighty king of men.” He also told me that R.L.S. had come especially across the seas from the great “white country” to see him and kneel at his feet; and as he told those tales of his proud imagination he lifted his intelligent eyes to the skies and his shrivelled lips trembled with emotional pride at the thought that, though he was no longer a ruler of men, there were white men living who had bowed the knee to him and assured him that he still lived in the memory of men as great as ever, though humbled by advancing civilisation and the wrecking hand of cruel Time. And, to tell the truth, that deserted forgotten old chief of barbarian Marquesan tribes had more of the look of born kingship in his stalwart shrivelled anatomy, as he sat there almost in tears over revived memories, than all the kings of Europe bunched together; and I shall never regret going on my knee before him and bowing my head in a moment of emotional impulse as I bade him farewell and pressed a plug of ship’s tobacco into his majestic hand, which gift so delighted him that he forgot the great majesty that for a moment had crowned him, and with an aged shrill voice shouted, “Good mans, white boy,” and stood upright and gave a kind of delighted double shuffle at such a stroke of luck.

In that same village I also met wrinkled old native women who gazed with scorn on the young native girls who wore tappa girdles from their waists to their knees. One of them told me she had been the most beautiful woman of the Islands and much loved by the bravest warriors of her day. She was not unlike the old Marquesan Queen whom Hornecastle introduced me to, who had had her photograph taken by the Judge’s son whom I met at Samoa, but she had not the queenly bearing, and when I crept into the next hut I learned from another dethroned queen that it was really she who was once the most beautiful of queens and the envy of all brave warriors, and she tried to get out of me what the “bad no good woman” next door had told me; but I kept a still tongue, for I saw how things were between them and did not wish them to murder each other over the awful jealousy that I saw each had for the other. I can still see their brown wrinkled faces under the starlit palms peeping from their den doors as I bade them farewell and passed away. I never saw such evil looks as they sideways gave each other as I crept quietly on. They each thought they had succeeded in proving they were old-time queens. I did not particularly like either of them, for each had gazed at me with odd looks and stroked my white hand with their shrivelled dark paws, smacking their remnants of lips, as though remembering old days and cannibalistic feasts.

Of course it may have been purely imagination on my part, but I could not help feeling as I did, for I had seen a good deal in my wanderings among the South Sea Islanders, much more than I have told you in these reminiscences—for there are things which I must leave out, things which are too dreadful to describe in cold print to civilised eyes of the home country, but are well known to the travellers of the days when I was a boy and saw the smouldering out of the true savage races of the South Seas. I lived on the Islands and mixed with the people as though I were one of them, and though the outside world lived under the impression that all the old savage instincts had died out, I knew that they had not. The natives knew they would be punished for cannibalism and other crimes of a bloodthirsty heathenish character, and so it was all practised in secrecy, and to this day I will swear terrible things are done on the quiet! Do not the civilised polished towns of Europe harbour in their very midst men who are dangerous criminals and addicted to heinous crimes? Often those very men mingle with you and even gain your admiration and respect, for you do not dream of their true character, and yet men think that the whole of the aboriginal South Sea races have completely changed their old instincts, and all are now Christian, just as they profess they are, and nothing is done under cover as it is done under cover in European cities!

I remember how Hornecastle got hold of a book which praised the reformation of the South Sea savage and the glorious work of the American missionaries. The old fellow was eating an orange as he read, and as he roared with laughter he swallowed the whole of the half orange, turned purple in the face, and when the native put his fingers down and cleared the throat passage the old chap sat upright, put his hand on his stomach and, to my astonishment, still continued to explode with laughter, roaring out at intervals as he nearly choked, “God help the damned heathens,” “Holy Moses and Missionaries,” and then buried his nose in the book and started to read again with extreme delight and twinkling eyes, for I think of all men he knew the stealthy lives that were being lived behind the veil of native life in the South Seas, where often men disappeared and were never heard of again, as the Polynesians, Melanesians and the half-castes saw the longed-for chance occur and got their own back! Aye, there are hundreds of skeletons whitening in the forest of those Pacific Isles, skeletons of men who fell by the stealthy war club or had their heads blown off by the old-fashioned breech-loading pistols given to the natives by traders for shiploads of copra, palm oil, and sometimes for help in kidnapping girls, who often disappeared from their homes and were never seen again.

I believe if a man like Hornecastle had written a book telling all that he had seen in his own time and the time when I was on those Islands it would have been one of the most terrible human documents ever read by the eyes of men, so terrible in its revelations of bloodshed, trickery and lust, both on the white and native side, that very few people would have believed a quarter of the truth told. There are no more undiscovered shores to be found in the world now, and never again in the history of the world will the wanderers from a highly civilised race suddenly come across primeval races in far seas, who will leap from the forest and gaze with astonished eyes into the eyes of men who are their brothers of long ago, lost in the dark of ages and returned to reform the ways of the old, and heartily enjoy the change from the new.

After a stay of about two weeks I sailed on the Austral away from the beautiful shores of “Nuka Hiva.” Far away the whitening waves, tossing on the reefs, faded as the sunset struck the inland forest palms and mountain ranges, and then the stars came out and overhead the song of the sails started to sing and once more I was at sea. It was a long voyage; we called at the Caroline Islands, and after an absence of quite five months I once more arrived at Samoa, and got paid off by the skipper and stopped in Apia, resting myself for several weeks, spending my days in violin-studying and calling on the storekeepers. Afterwards I went to Upolu, and while strolling by the cedar-trees that skirted the shore forest I met Robert Louis Stevenson. “Hello, young man,” he said, as I looked up and recognised him, “are you still living here?” “No,” I answered, “I’ve been to the Marquesas, and Fiji, in fact all over the place.” I told him of the chieftain Hafiao who had told me that Stevenson had bowed the knee to him. He was extremely amused at all I told him, and I got to like him exceedingly as he began to talk in an earnest way about the Island customs and what the home folks would think of life in the South Seas and the women, for as we strolled along some pretty native girls went by with baskets of fish, their lava-lavas on, their bare brown bodies shining in the sunlight. We stopped them and R.L.S. bought one of the baskets of fish and invited me to his friend’s house, and I went with him and stayed and had supper and entertained them with the violin. I think the gentleman whom he was staying with then was an American, and had something to do with the Legation offices. I had a very pleasant time, and felt extremely at home with the earnest kind-faced man who has added such interest to the sad romance of Samoa, for as the world knows he died there and was buried on the top of Vaea Mountain, and to this day that mountain is looked upon as a sacred spot by the Samoans who loved R. L. Stevenson, and the natives never hunt or fire guns or shoot the birds that roam and sing by that mighty sepulchre, for it is their faith that his songs are still being sung by the birds as the years go by and he sleeps on that mountain top.

But to go back to the invitation which I had to supper.

I had a most enjoyable evening; there was a Mr Herd also in the party. The house was only a one-storey dwelling-place, and the room wherein we dined a large dim-lit place with two windows facing seaward. The overhead hanging lamp-glass had been smashed through the clumsiness of the native girls who waited at the table, and I was deeply thankful that they had done so, for I was pretty shabby and threadbare at that time, and the gloom made me feel more at ease as I sipped my wine and had very little to say, having no confidence in myself through the knowledge that R.L.S. was a writer of books. He seemed in a good mood as he sat at the other side of the table in his white duck suit, his lean bare throat moving above his loose low shirt collar as he and his friends spoke of their experiences in the Islands and bubbled over with laughter. The native girls, attired in fringed ridis and tappu cloth reaching from their breasts, and down to their bare knees, rushed round the table waving palm leaves to create a breeze, and repulse the mosquito droves that made desperate attempts to get their share by dining off us. The American Legation gentleman seemed to be a jolly customer, and partook frequently of the whisky.

Robert Louis Stevenson seemed very temperate; he smoked cigarettes and drank the pure juice of limes, holding them over a glass he squeezed them in his hand till the glass was nearly full, added whisky and drank at a gulp, throwing the skins of the limes over the heads of his friends, out of the open window, only just missing them, and seemed greatly amused as they dodged. He treated the native girls and boys who stood around with great kindness, speaking to them as though they were little children. I think he spoke to them in the native language. They seemed to know him; after the supper was over, I noticed their good behaviour and respectfulness, as they crossed their brown hands, closed their eyes and repeated word for word after R.L.S., as he bowed his head and said grace.

“Well, Middleton,” he said, as our host sat down to an old American organ and started playing softly, his feet going up and down ten revolutions a second, as he pedalled the leaky bellows, “which do you like the best, the Old Country or the South Seas?”

“Well, for climate and novelty, I like this place, but I often have a longing for the homeland.”

“So do I. We all love our native land the best at heart,” he said, and I could see by his expression that his dreams were often overseas, for he lapsed into silence, threw the cigarette away that he had only just lit, and placed another one in his mouth, and walked up and down, as was his habit at times when in conversation with anyone.

I remember that he asked me if I was going back to England again, also if I liked sea life, and when I told him of some of my bush experiences he seemed deeply interested, and asked me a good deal about the Australian blacks. He was greatly interested in their habits, and seemed to know a lot about their history and wandering instincts, and remarked upon the great difference between the intellects of the blacks and the Islanders of the South Seas, as he sat there gazing with his keen inquiring eyes, fingering his chin as the cool wind drifted through the open window. I can still vividly remember the delight in his face as he watched the native servants. I played the violin, accompanied by our host on the organ, who played by ear, and made up for his indifferent accompaniment by singing at intervals, as I did my best to entertain. R.L.S. joined in by humming. We were suddenly disturbed by a jabbering noise outside, and then the door opened and a native woman, with barely anything on except the ridi, poked her head and body half in the room and said something to our host the American, in the Samoan language. It appeared that he was a medical man, and had been attending her child who was suffering through influenza, which had become suddenly worse, so she and a gathering of friends had rushed hurriedly to our host for help. R.L.S. and I accompanied him, as he quickly shut down the organ lid, and off we all went out into the night.

Across the forest track we hurried. Like big children, Samoan mothers, men, and their naked little ones, went running along the moonlit track in front of us, the wailing mother and father of the sick child pattering beside us, looking with relieved eyes, because we were white men, thinking that our different skin made us potent and that all would be well when the doctor reached their child. We had to walk almost half-a-mile, and then they all turned off the forest track to the left, and under the palms, to where stood their large hut homes; bending down we all entered the sick-room. It was a sweet little mite, emaciated through chest trouble. Its tiny bones seemed to be all out of place, protruding under its soft velvety brown skin, as it gazed wistfully up with small bright fevered eyes, as we all leaned over its small mat bed.

The American tenderly picked her up, gave her physic, and did all that was best for the infant, then whispered some hopeless opinion to R.L.S., who tenderly bent over the little patient, as concerned as though it were his own child, as he chuckled with his lips, and touched it softly on the chin with his finger playfully, till it actually looked up at him and gave a wan smile. The parents fell on their knees delighted, and started rapidly to say the Lord’s Prayer together as others shouted “Folofa-Mio,” which meant “better to-morrow.” It was a weird sad sight, and when we passed out under the coco-palms into the brilliantly lit moonlit space I noticed Stevenson and the doctor were very quiet, for we felt pretty sadly as our medical friend had very dubious hopes as to its recovery. A Samoan quack medicine man had been practising on the sick mite, and the disease, through improper treatment, had got the upper hand. Stevenson went off soon after we reached the house again, and though it was very late, I would not accept the invitation to stay the night, and went back to my lodging by the shore side, near Apia Town, a little shanty place of a young trader, who had let me share his home. When I arrived back I felt a bit depressed, but my friend cheered me up. He was a lively fellow, crammed full up with reminiscences, having been for some years trading among the Islanders, and he would tell me in vivid language about his experiences in the Fijian group. He had known and lived with the son of Thakambau,^[3] the last of the great Cannibal Kings, who had then been dead some two or three years or more, and terrible were the deeds of that old king before he became Christianised^[4] and handed over the Fiji Isles to the British Government. I had personally met old men chiefs whose sisters had been roasted in the “Bokai Ovens” at the grand cannibal festivities of their young days.

My comrade kept me up nearly the whole night cheerily telling me of the wild escapades of those days, and was extremely amusing as he described Fijian weddings, which were conducted something after the Samoan fashion as far as the fantastic dancing went, but there the similarity ended. By night most of the weddings were performed, the king or head chief of the tribe taking a seat on the throne, solemnly gazing on as a kind of spiritual figure-head, as from the forest for miles around came leaping the natives, attracted by the boomed notes of the lais (wooden drum), all to assemble and witness the wedding, as the native bride, flushed with pleasure, attired in the scant robe of the period, danced the wild fantastic can-can of the South Seas before the assembled encoring tribe, dressed only in a string of shells that jingled at her sulu-cloth. There on the chosen moonlit night under the tamnu and bread-fruit trees she swayed and swerved in all the postures that would reveal her beauty to the bridegroom’s eyes, and the ring of natives would make the forest and hills re-echo as their voices extolled her female charms, as the old high priest chanting the special service gazed enviously, nudging the bride as an encore hint whenever she did anything especially pleasing to the dusky onlookers. “Mbula! Mbula!” they would shout when at last, perspiring, trembling and excited, she stood at rest. “Mbula! Mbula!” they would still cry, which meant “may the gods send thee many children,” and then the bridegroom also danced as the old king or chief descended from his throne to welcome the bashful bride, and to bow her into his home before the great wedding feast, for it was the custom of certain tribes that the bride should receive the king’s kiss first. More I cannot say, excepting for the grim rumour and respect for the first-born, whose lineaments often resembled those of the old king who officiated at the wedding, and such was the great respect held for those children who were the first born, and consequently of blood-royal, that the unloved maidens of those wild Isles, as innocent as in the Garden of Eden, and of the ways of the Western world, would often ambitiously throw themselves across the path of the royal favour.

On the other hand some of the tribes outdid the high standard of the morals of advanced civilisation, and it was considered the height of impropriety for a maid to eat in the presence of a marriageable man, and everlasting disgrace lay on the head of the native girl who had once touched a bed mat whereon had slept a man, and many of the old customs of the South Seas are still practised secretly, and this was, and is, common knowledge to the white residents of the Pacific.

But to go back to my comrade the trader, I stayed at his homestead for some time. It was a romantic spot; by our front door curled the waves up the shore, and by night across the moonlit bay in canoes paddled the natives, singing as they fished.

We made a neat galley cooking stove just outside by the door, whereby we sat at night, as the fire blazed and the cooking fish spluttered in the frying-pan. My chum was a splendid cook, and served up many dishes of yams and bread fruit, entrÉes, done in native fashion. From the village a mile away, inland, the natives would come every morning and clean our one-roomed dwelling out. On the wooden walls above our bunks were photographs of our relations and friends in England. I was very happy there with my amiable chum, who was always in a joking mood, and would cheerily sing as I played the fiddle.

He was a bit gone on a half-caste Samoan girl, and the only little hitch that disturbed our friendship was through my foolishness in responding to the native girl’s wish to learn to play the violin. I was innocent enough, and as soon as I saw the way the wind blew I shut right down, and the fiddle lessons ceased, and so the sulky look on my comrade’s face faded and once more the cheery smile returned; and by the crackling fire and spluttering stews, into my ears was poured the lore of the South Seas, with the human note of reality in it, till we retired to bed, and the warm wind in moonlight waved the shadows of the palm leaves outside over our faces as we lay unsleeping in our coffin-shaped bunks, my chum one side and I the other side, talking and dreaming till “Are you asleep, Middy?” sounded far away, as I sleepily answered, “Yes” over and over again as he talked on, till at last even the sound of the waves outside faded away and we both slept.

The natives got very friendly with us two, and extremely jealous of each other if we hired one of them more than another, and terrible were the tales we had to hear about the one whom we had hired.

“He not Christian man. Sin much, and steal ‘nother man’s wife” and so on, till we thought it advisable, before there was a murder in the camp, to make a bargain with the lot, and hire them all at regular intervals to do our cooking, wood collecting and the rough general work.